By Twinflower Wilkie, WSU Master Gardener
I’ve been thinking about the fourth yearly drought declaration by the State Department of Ecology and what to do about it. This has brought back a memory. As a youngster, I liked to accompany my father on his daily chores. Dad had a couple alfalfa fields that he watered by ditching. Every few feet, there was a ditch about 6 inches deep, running the length of the field. He would start water at one end of the ditch, and using a hoe, he would clear any obstacles in the way of the water flow. This memory has inspired me to try this practice in the vegetable garden.
We haven’t put in the time and money, nor have we developed the expertise to perfect a drip system with emitters and timers and filters. Soaker and sprinkler hoses have kinked, clogged and leaked and if the ground wasn’t perfectly level, the hoses delivered lots of water in one place and none in another. So, I am imitating Dad and ditching inbetween vegetable rows. This is not a perfectly low maintenance system. You must fill the ditches with water as frequently as the crops need watering and use your hoe or a stream of water to clear out the debris that might block the ditch.
There are a few other ways to cut down on water use, which will cut down on how often you need to fill your ditches. Here are a few suggestions:
- Enrich your soil with organic matter. Good soil texture will help retain water.
- Mulch your soil. Wood chips, organic straw or hay, shredded leaves, and even cardboard will hold in moisture. Remember to protect your paths with permeable surfaces, too.
- Use cover crops to keep soil cooler and moisturized, add nutrients and build soil humus.
- Plant cool season crops as early as possible to take advantage of spring rain.
- Use water zoning. This is the practice of planting plants with similar water needs together and only applying as much water as is needed in that zone.
- Use water catchment, such as rain barrels to supplement your main water source.
- Use berms of earth around the dripline of trees and shrubs to hold water.
- Assess your terrain – if your land is sloping, use terracing or build swales parallel to the slope of the hill to slow the water and keep it from running off.
- As much as possible, use drought resistant varieties of plants.
Now, don’t let me discourage you from using drip irrigation, but if you want a cheap, low-tech irrigation system, try ditching your water woes!